Interesting to see the numbers. For example, Red Notice is #1 with 149 million hours viewed, and when you look at the Wikipedia entry for that film, it says:
> Due to the film's $200 million production budget and Netflix's global film chief Scott Stuber saying that the company's "big-budget tentpole films [need] to draw an audience of more than 70 million viewers within the first 28 days of availability," The New York Observer estimated Red Notice would need to total around 200 million hours (about 83 million household viewers) to be deemed a success
I guess by this definition, it can be deemed a success.
This number is so large that it makes me question the accuracy. The movie is 115 minutes so this is 77.6m views if we assume that everyone who streamed it watched the entire thing and only watched it once. It looks like the most recent numbers say Netflix has 209 million subscribers. That would mean 37% of the global Netflix subscriber base watched this movie in the first few days after release. That is literally unbelievable.
It isn't directly comparably to theatrical box office numbers, but the total viewers would likely translate to at least the 2nd biggest opening ever for a theatrical release. That would be a ridiculous accomplishment for an original movie. There is not a single non-franchise movie in the list of top 50 biggest openings ever[1].
And before anyone responds, yes I understand that the assumptions I made would impact these conclusions, but the assumptions are working in opposite directions, at least partially cancel each other out, and are mostly just used to show approximate magnitude.
Aren't Netflix subscriptions notorious for having multiple users on the same account? I've been using an account shared with 4 other people, for instance. The true number of users could be 2-3x that number.
For movie theaters its typically one ticket per person. So easy to get watch time or earnings, etc.
Not saying Netflix is doing this but if the general consensus is that the watch time is too high, perhaps they're not doing simple hours streamed, but trying to guess how many people are in the room watching it too?
So on a phone/ipad it might be one viewer, but if its watched on a TV maybe they're multiplying it by 2 (or some other number 1.5, 2.5, etc) because on average maybe two people watch so its technically two hours watched per hour streamed? That could for sure explain higher then expected numbers while still not faking viewership numbers.
>>These lists rank titles based on weekly hours viewed: the total number of hours that our members around the world watched
Guess it depends on whether "member" means only the paying subscriber, or if "member" counts as anyone in the family who might be in the room at the time of it playing.
Sure and some people turned the movie off after 10 minutes. We have no idea the true numbers so I am just assuming these issues cancel each other out for the sake of some back of the napkin math.
- if there are multiple users per netflix account, you underestimate the total number of netflix users.
- if the total hour-count includes users that have only watched 10% of the movie, you over estimate the number of users that have actually watched the entire movie. (by counting in the ones that haven't)
In both cases you end up over estimating the fraction of netflix users that have watched the entire movie.
If you assume that there are two users per netflix accounts on average, and that 10 users out of 11 will drop the movie after 10% then your estimated percentage will be 4x higher than the real percentage. So, its probably more around 9-10% of netflix users that have seen the movie.
>- if the total hour-count includes users that have only watch 10% of the movie, your estimate over estimates the number users that have actually watched the entire movie. (by counting in the ones that haven't)
The number Netflix gave us was total time watched. If the average watch time was less than the runtime, that means more people watched the movie for at least some period. That is the number I was highlighting, total viewers and not the number of viewers who watched the entire movie. The existing metrics for theatrical releases is revenue and tickets sold, not people still in the theater when the credits roll.
EDIT: To use your numbers, if 10/11 dropped after 10% and 1/11 watched the whole thing, that would mean the average time watched was around 25 minutes. That yields a total of 364m streams. At 2 users per account, that is 182m accounts or 87% of Netflix subscribers watched at least part of the movie. That is obviously a huge increase to that 37% from my prior estimate.
> If the average watch time was less than the runtime, that means more people watched the movie for at least some period.
I'm suggesting some of this total watchtime is not meaningful (<1 min watch time) and may still contribute to a significant proportion of the total watch time.
You assume all the watch time is meaningful.
You also assume there are no users with multiple accounts.
I think these two assumptions are not very reasonable, and can explain why you find your own estimate "literally unbelievable".
>I'm suggesting some of this total watchtime is not meaningful (<1 min watch time) and may still contribute to a significant proportion of the total watch time.
How does this contribution a significant proportion to the total watch time? Even the last example that had 90% of users not finishing the movie required 87% of subscribers to at least watch some of it. Do you think the number of subscribers who watched even a second of this movie is higher than 87%?
>You also assume there are no users with multiple accounts.
Do you mean a person with multiple different Netflix accounts or multiple people sharing a single Netflix account? I have no idea why someone would do the former and I would be shocked if there was any sizable number of people who do that. If you mean the latter, my previous comment used the assumption that each subscriber equals two users like you originally suggested.
>I think these two assumptions are not very reasonable, and can explain why you find your own estimate "literally unbelievable".
Ok, why don't you throw together some numbers on the estimated percentage of Netflix subscribers who watched any part of this movie?
If there is a lot of < 1 min watch time contributing to the total global watch time it means the share of accounts that started the movie at all is even higher. This is what is surprising the grandparent.
Given that Netflix knows exactly what was streamed from their servers and to which viewers, including if there are multiple simultaneous playbacks in a household/login, I suspect they are much more accurate than back of the napkin math.
Turning a movie after 10 minutes is fairly uncommon though. People usually commit to watching the whole thing once they've picked a movie, even if they end up playing on their phones. Not saying that it does not happen, just that it's fairly rare.
Many Hollywood-type movies are pretty formulaic and start with the backstory of the hero, what is their daily life, before the first inflection point at eround 20-25%, the big event that forces the start of the hero's journey.
I would imagine many people stop during this first act or during the last one when you can tell how everything is going to be tied together.
But that is the whole point of a 'hollywood type' movie. It's pure escapism for 90+ minutes, even if you can guess early on how it's going to play out.
For people who don't like these type of movies, there are plenty of other 'films' (not movies) out there, that cater for the times when something popcorny isn't what you want.
With Red Notice, it's clear from the stills/trailer that it's a simple actioner, you are going to know if that's your thing even before you press play.
Do you have statistics on that or you are speculating from your own experience?
If the second I would say I’m very likely to turn off movies at 10 minutes in. That is the point where I realise that a movie is not what I imagined it to be, or that I’m not feeling like watching something after all. That being said maybe I’m the odd one out so I can’t say what masses of people actually do.
The biggest complaint from Netflix subscribers is that they run out of things to watch.
Netflix literally popularized the concept of “binging”
I do not find it unbelievable at all that new high-profile content gets viewed by a third of subscribers.
I assume netflix put it top of the list for everyone in their suggestions, I've never heard of it except for in 1 place, a thread where people with netflix say what film they just watched, in which it's very popular.
They have the data, they know who's popular, what genre is popular (brain dead action comedies), they specifically designed a film to appeal to the most netflix subscribers, and could easily get 1/3rd of their subscribers to watch it.
>That would mean 37% of the global Netflix subscriber base watched this movie in the first few days after release. That is literally unbelievable.
why? and some people will watch it multiple times, also if hours watched is just the straight calculation of all the time spent watching the people who go back and watch a scene over again would also count.
I would expect it to be a straight calculation of all time watched, easier and probably the best calculator of value for Netflix.
>but the total viewers would likely translate to at least the 2nd biggest opening ever for a theatrical release.
I would expect that streaming movies get a larger amount of the available audience to look at them if they look reasonably enjoyable than movies in theatres.
in point of fact I watched it and I would never have wasted my time to go to a theater to see it - but I was tired and felt this will be a brainless thing with some funny Ryan Reynolds lines and buddy hijinks with the Rock competently executed, time to chill out and eat some snacks.
> This number is so large that it makes me question the accuracy.
Given that Netflix will have verrrry precise insights into how much of a stream was delivered to a given viewing instance, I'm inclined to accept it.
It would include people who've put on Red Notice, forgotten about it, tried to watch it again, got distracted, managed to finally watch it, then their partner / kids, also watched it, all on the same account.
They can't know for sure when two people are watching at the same time on the same device (TV). And if they apply a factor, they can't know that my wife always falls asleep before the halfway mark.
> It isn't directly comparably to theatrical box office numbers, but the total viewers would likely translate to at least the 2nd biggest opening ever for a theatrical release.
“Biggest opening for a theatrical release” is a matter of revenue, not number of viewers. Every single existing Netflix user watching it corresponds to as little as $0 in marginal revenue, which is very far from #2.
>“Biggest opening for a theatrical release” is a matter of revenue, not number of viewers.
Number of tickets sold and total box office receipts are two measures of the same thing. Yes, with Netflix there is no marginal cost to watch a movie, but just the idea that in the first week after release more people saw this movie than any Star Wars movie is baffling regardless of the specific revenue numbers.
> more people saw this movie than any Star Wars movie is baffling
Is it? It's much easier than going to the movies. You could literally watch it on the toilet.
I can imagine that if, for $20, you were magically and instantly transported to a personal showing (in which you didnt have to wear pants and your cat was there), movie theaters would have a lot more users.
A better number might be star wars theater+home video, but even then that'll be depressed because it's not "free" with a subscription.
Ok, for a more apples to apples comparison, let's look at the Wonder Women movies.
The first one opens to $103m[1] which equates to 11.5m viewers. The new one was released simultaneously both in theaters and streaming. It had an opening of $17m or 1.8m viewers plus 38m hours streaming and roughly 14.9m viewings. Let's subtract the sequel's theatrical run from both totals and we have 9.7m theatrical vs 14.9m streaming which equates to a theatrical performance being 65% of the streaming performance (assuming they should both have similar openings which is another arbitrary assumption done to simplify everything and because there are multiple factors pushing in opposite directions).
Let's dock the previous Red Notice numbers of that 35% inflation and that gives us 50m streams. That would knock it out of the number 2 spot, but it would likely still be top 10. Once again, this is an original movie and no non-franchise movie is in the top 50 biggest openings. I still don't buy these numbers.
Yeah, but that was on HBO max. That had, at the time, less than 1/5 the users of netflix. Wonder Woman was clearly a marquee title designed to get signups, but that strategy is always risky and not super effective as a one-off - registration funnels are very hard. So, it's not as much a 1:1 comparison as you thought it was.
14.9 wonder woman streams * 5 increased audience = 74 mil. That puts it well within the realm of netflix' numbers. I mean obv that's not perfect because not everyone wants to watch it.
Also, using wonder woman as an example isn't great, because the general buzz on its release was that frankly, it wasn't a good movie. Critical and audience reviews suggest it's a markedly "less popular" movie than red notice.
The numbers are well within the realm of possibility. Although, I wouldn't be surprised to find out netflix is being very favorable to themselves - in fact, I'd expect it.
>Yeah, but that was on HBO max. That had, at the time, less than 1/5 the users of netflix. Wonder Woman was clearly a marquee title designed to get signups, but that strategy is always risky and not super effective as a one-off - registration funnels are very hard. So, it's not as much a 1:1 comparison as you thought it was.
>14.9 wonder woman streams * 5 increased audience = 74 mil. That puts it well within the realm of netflix' numbers. I mean obv that's not perfect because not everyone wants to watch it.
WW84 was the biggest HBO Max exclusive to date. People did signup to watch that movie and therefore their subscribers were a self selected group who are not a representative sample that we can just multiple by 5. Also we already factored in the theatrical release which provided the opportunity for non-HBO subscribers to see it. And to be clear, I wasn't directly comparing WW84 viewer numbers to Red Notice. I was comparing WW to WW84 numbers so the difference in size between Netflix and HBO Max is less of a factor.
>Also, using wonder woman as an example isn't great, because the general buzz on its release was that frankly, it wasn't a good movie. Critical and audience reviews suggest it's a markedly "less popular" movie than red notice.
But it was also a sequel to a beloved movie and an iconic character. Plus the original had a lot of word of mouth success that caused people to predict that WW84 would open bigger. It was one of the most anticipated movies of the year.
Also you are just flat wrong when you say Red Notice received better critical reviews. Both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes have WW84 with mediocre scores and Red Notice with awful scores.
>The numbers are well within the realm of possibility. Although, I wouldn't be surprised to find out netflix is being very favorable to themselves - in fact, I'd expect it.
So it sounds like we agree that Netflix is probably bending the truth with these numbers in the same mold of how Facebook was lying about the number of people who watched their videos.[1]
im not sure that's a comment in your favor ;) ww84 was pretty bad. i imagine it drove some signups, but not as many as hbo would have hoped for
> People did signup to watch that movie and therefore their subscribers were a self selected group who are not a representative sample that we can just multiple by 5.
Yeah, my bad. It's actually * 12.
"HBO Max accounts jump to 17.2 million"
At the time, netflix had 208 mil. So, it gets even more believable that netflix is accurately representing their numbers - their audience is so much larger than competitive streaming services, that they can in fact drive record breaking traffic.
>im not sure that's a comment in your favor ;) ww84 was pretty bad. i imagine it drove some signups, but not as many as hbo would have hoped for
Once again, I will point out it received a better critical response than Red Notice did despite you saying otherwise.
>Yeah, my bad. It's actually * 12...
You are comparing a domestic total for HBO Max to a global total for Netflix not to mention you ignored the rest of my comment explaining why this comparison isn't as important as you think.
Most of your incredulity seems to be rooted in Red Notice (probably) not being a good movie.
But I really don't think that factors into Netflix viewership as much as you'd like.
Netflix is treated more as "friday night tv", than "going to the cinema" and people are much more willing to sit through crap on Netflix than you seem willing to accept
I don't think Netflix and movie theatres are even remotely comparable. To see a movie open at theatres you need to travel to the theatre, queue for limited seating, buy a ticket, etc. most people wouldn't go more than once in a while. Netflix is a monthly fee and available 24/7 in your home. You can turn it on and half watch a movie while you're doing other things around the house. I think their numbers are perfectly accurate and am not at all surprised they outperform the box office.
I agree. I bet this is like the media reach metrics of print newspaper,l where it is assumed many people will read a single printed news paper.
It's not possible to know how many people watched a single stream. Therefore, why would Netflix be inclined to imply less people watch it than did with 1 person per stream.
I imagine more and more Netflix properties will start to include product placement over time. I also expect a cheaper tier that's "ad-supported" sort of like what Hulu does.
Look at it from the flip-side. You, a classic theatre orientated studio, are looking for a distributer for your new film called 'Big Bangs & Car Chases', now you know that Netflix is a viable place to put your expensive film, if you don't want to go the theatre-first route.
Of course this all hinges on Netflix paying enough money for the rights that the lost cost of traditionally sold movie tickets is covered.
I'm aware that the accounting methods presumably aren't completely comparable but considering Dune apparently cost about $165 mil to make I am perpetually amazed how expensive some films have ended up being.
Keep in mind that nearly half of that went to the three main cast members alone ($50M + $20M + $20M respectively)[0]. The Rock got more because he is both a star and producer of the movie.
The Rock is a mediocre actor but a far bigger star than Cruise these days. He's been the highest or 2nd highest earning actor every year for the past five years.
The Rock has good crossover appeal, from action movies to children's adventure-commedies. Together, action fans + family-friendly crowd, is a pretty massive potential audience.
I think Cruise has the former but doesn't really do any of the latter, so his total potential audience may not be as large.
The cast of Dune probably wasn't exactly cheap (Chalamet alone must command a big fee these days now that he has the chops and the bona fides now), but yep.
Yup, that’s my first thought too. However hard I try, I can’t justify the money some of these actors get paid. 50m for Dwayne - he is an average actor at best, somewhat entertaining, but 50M?
Movie itself was meh. I can’t get the 2 hours back :(
It's not about how much $ Dwayne deserves, but how much of the % he deserves. I'd argue 1/4th of the money makes sense, since a lot of people click on movies just because he's in it.
I don’t understand how a single movie’s viewers translate into success for a company where users do not pay individually for the movie. Netflix still gets my money whether I watch this movie or not. How does that work?
Although, I cancelled my Netflix subscription a few years ago because I felt like I was watching too much. Same reason I quit World of Warcraft back in the day :)
presumably, views correlate to subscriptions. If view hours drop, it follows that subscriptions (would) drop in the future, if nothing changes.
A big budget film or series eats up capital, so if it is to contribute to the total view-hours count, it must do so at a rate that is better than making several, smaller series at a lower budget.
Cost for 3 A list stars is $60m+. Dwayne Johnson is the highest paid actor and Gal Gadot is one of the highest paid actresses. Ryan Reynolds supposedly received $20m to be in the film.
That still doesn't change the definition of inflation. In a very oversimplified example, if Netflix costs $5 instead of $10/month those actors would be forced to accept $10m instead of $20m per movie.
They wouldn't be "forced" to accept anything, they just wouldn't do the deal in the first place, and would go to someone more willing to pay them the fee they want.
That's why I said "oversimplified". Is there someone willing to pay them more at the moment? Why not? Is $20m per actor a universal constant? That's how inflation works.
When I open Netflix in my browser Tiger King starts playing in the background. If you click on a film to read the synopsis often the film starts playing.
I wonder how many of those hours are people repeatedly watching for 20 seconds in the background before moving on?
Considering that this kind of overcounting data was communicated to paying customers of Facebook (advertisers), I imagine Netflix will go for the biggest numbers possible. It's not like that data is audited like a financial statement would be.
I wonder how Netflix could structure the deal with the main cast. Rock, Gadot, and Reynolds all take a share of box-office earnings, right? Netflix does not have a box office, so it's really curious how they structured such deal.
It’s actual hours streamed. Given the intense scrutiny this metric will get, including audits by EY, there’s no way they’d get away with some handwavy assumption multiplier of butts in seats.
It's fun to look at the numbers for Squid Game (under TV/Non-English) over time. The first week on September 13 was better than most English TV shows...and then the next few weeks nearly 10xed that first week performance. Even now, two months later, it beats most of the Top English TV shows.
I am probably an outlier but I can't stand shows that are too gory or violent. I prefer the old school shows where even when someone was murdered you could hardly see a drop of blood. These days almost any show that involves any kind of crime depicts so much violence and blood, I find it extremely disturbing. Is this just me? I really hope not.
Yeah, I am getting really tired of how gory everything has to be today. I think as a culture we should not normalize so much blood and gore. Maybe I think more like this now because I am older and a parent. Plus I have just watched so much violence on TV over so many years that it kind of seems outdated. A cheap trick by people who don’t know how to make tension without gore.
I'm the opposite. I hate how some movies (PG-13) show people getting shot without a drop of blood, or people getting unconscious from a swift hit to the head and then waking up a few minutes later as if they just went to sleep. Violence without consequence is worse than gory violence, because it teaches the viewers that it's ok.
The alternative to gory violence is not cartoon violence. There's no problem with some shows being gory violent. The parent comment lamented that it seems to be a norm now. Films can tackle the consequence of violence, without explicitly showing it happen, and especially without zooming in it happening.
> Violence without consequence is worse than gory violence, because it teaches the viewers that it's ok.
On the other hand, I would assume that it desensitizes viewers to violence. I'm not sure how or if that translates in any way to real life violence. I wonder if there are any studies out there on the subject?
How is that the norm for so much tv and cinema? Maybe 30 years ago, but I don’t think you can say that violence and gore are underrepresented everywhere but network TV.
I'm a big fan of Haneke's work and I agree that depicting the truth, even obscene truths, is an important role of art. But in this case I am reminded of the "Thermian Argument" [1]. Squid Game isn't truth, it's fiction, and the authors of that fiction chose how much violence is needed to tell their story. If they go out of their way to make sure everybody gets murdered, it might not reveal a whole lot of truth.
I haven't watched any of Squid Game, I just didn't want to miss a chance to share Folding Ideas's work.
I dunno, I'm not super convinced by the "Thermian Argument" video linked here.
It seems to be saying that defending objectionable content by appealing to the consistency of the world in which it takes place is a weak argument. For instance, the speaker says that it's unreasonable to object to gratuitous violence in a show by saying "that violence is part of this world."
I think that it's totally laudable (and often leads to better stories) to exercise some restraint, or to remove the most jarring content that might bring viewers out of the story, but I disagree with the argument that doing otherwise to preserve the integrity of a fictional world is bad.
If a storyteller wants to build a world which isn't aligned with our own concept of obscenity, I think that that's also a totally fine form of art. If a writer creates a world in which there is plentiful violence (or racism, or sexism, or cannibalism, or any other atrocious thing you can think of), I think that those stories are also totally valid. If, as the speaker mentions, a tribe of warrior women wears chainmail bikinis, that is totally fine if it's actually rational within the fictional world (the video sets up what feels like a strawman here, as "that's just what they do" feels like a very weak argument for any content in a fictional world).
I'd argue that it's totally fair to criticize why an author constructed a world the way they did, or to say "I don't want to read a story that takes place in this world".
In terms of criticizing specific content within that world, though, I'd say diegetic explanations are actually one of the best defenses for storytelling choices (essentially, the opposite of the "Thermian Argument", if I'm understanding it correctly).
> it's totally laudable (and often leads to better stories) to exercise some restraint, or to remove the most jarring content that might bring viewers out of the story, but I disagree with the argument that doing otherwise to preserve the integrity of a fictional world is bad.
> it's totally fair to criticize why an author constructed a world the way they did, or to say "I don't want to read a story that takes place in this world".
I very much agree with you. In my view, the point of the Thermian argument is not that the critic is too much of a prude for disliking the violence or sexism, the point is that the apologist is unable to express any storytelling purpose or emotional impact of the violence, so they just reiterate the diegetic. "The violence is in the movie because the is villain is violent". The Thermian argument is not that the artist should self-censor to remove these things, but that they should be able to express how it achieves their artistic goal.
> a tribe of warrior women wears chainmail bikinis, that is totally fine if it's actually rational within the fictional world
> I'd say diagetic explanations are actually one of the best defenses for storytelling choices
I could agree with this too, but I guess it depends what kind of media you and I are watching and how much rationality is involved. Besides, if an artist wants chainmail bikinis with no rational explanation whatsoever, that's also fine in its own way as an expression of sexuality. But we should just admit that we think it's sexy instead of pretending there's actually some tribal traditional reason for it. There's just no way that's rational when the enemy is shooting arrows at you without rewriting all laws of physics just to make this work.
The comment chain here is "I'm tired of TV shows using so much violence" -> "We shouldn't hide the truth of violence" and that's a Thermian argument because there was no truth until the authors wrote it, unless it's a documentary. But still I haven't seen SG so I can't comment re: how it uses the violence.
Thanks for the rebuttal, I like talking about this. And much respect to everyone involved of course.
Ah, that's a really good point that the argument just requires a diegetic defense to actually provide a rationalization within the world. I assumed that the "that's just the way it is" example was an easy-to-counter example, but if I'm understanding you correctly, the argument is opposed to it specifically because it's so weak.
That makes a lot more sense, thanks for taking the time to explain!
As I rewatch Dan's video, I do get the same feeling that you do. He doesn't give any examples of "good" diegetic explanations, only bad ones. So it seems as if he's not interested in rationalization of any kind. But he's not saying that rationalization is useless, he's just saying it can't defend against non-diegetic questions like "Why did the author choose to write so much violence?". Rational explanations are still useful because the viewer needs to understand what they're seeing. No media will be impervious to criticism no matter how rational it is, and that's okay because critiques and discussions are what make media interesting and help us understand the artist's intentions.
> He doesn't give any examples of "good" diegetic explanations, only bad ones.
Because the video isn’t about diegetic explanations, but the practice of using diegesis to defend against criticism.
The titular Thermian Argument doesn’t come up unless criticism is levied, so “good diegetic explanations” bear no relevance. Dan’s point is that it is a weak defence.
With perhaps a few arthouse exceptions, movies and TV became gorier in order to titillate audiences, not out of a sense of moral duty to provide an honest depiction of murder.
Spot on. If this was about moral duty of being honest, we would see a lot more real sex, nude bodies, urine and feces on screen. They are more real and honest for 99.9 % of people than excessive violence.
There's a full range of possible depictions on the scale from "pretending" murder is G-rated to showing gratuitous violence and unnecessary gory detail.
For example, it's largely sufficient to the plot and character development to know that Batman's parents were killed by a mugger when Bruce was just a boy, and that Uncle Ben was killed by a petty criminal whom Spiderman had the chance to apprehend (but declined to do so). Nothing is added by showing entry/exit wounds, slow pans over puddles of and spurts of blood, or any other sort of gore porn.
I mean it depends on the context of how the violence or gore is presented. In a lot of Korean shows / films in particular it is extremely stylized to the point where it's less disturbing and sometimes more comedic even.
I'd agree that gratuitous or cheap violence is kind of disturbing or at least the implication of what is says about the viewers is. But I think categorically saying that depiction of violence is disturbing isn't true.
Things come and go, late 70s were filled with crude horror and gore. I don't like it much, but as a kid I enjoyed bits of this. There would be no Alien without the chestb... So even if older I wouldn't mind no gore and more subtle ways to express things, I can't be against either.
I'm amazed at how a hyper-violent show like Squid Game could become a mainstream global megahit. But still, I know many people who haven't watched it because it's so violent. Same with Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad (though I find those shows far, far less disturbing than Squid Game).
I honestly disliked Squid Game a lot. The MC has serious Gary Stu vibes due to surviving despite his best efforts to fail.
The plot itself feels like someone made their own version of the Liar Game manga, which does almost the same thing, but far more intelligently.
The most intelligent thing that happens in Squid Game was the guy who is effectively an extra who just happens to know something about one of the games, but conceals this in a way that screws himself over pointlessly. That appears to be the main theme of the show so far, because nearly every character does something like that.
I have a bet with myself that the next installment will be the MC suddenly discovering that they could've been cooperating against the people running the game the entire time.
It may have something to do with age. I remember brushing off tv, computer violence like it was nothing ( partly because I did not think it was real ).
These days, I don't watch horror movies, I talk through my problems with NPCs rather than use violence.. overall I agree with you that basically I stay away unnecessary violence as much as possible, because it disturbs me. Squid game falls into that category.
Separately, I will also add that I did not buy the premise and didn't like the opening at all. I am clearly not the target demographic though based on its popularity.
That is why I enjoy the original Law & Order series. Barring a handful of exceptions over it's 400+ episodes, the only deaths happen in the first minute and are not shown; only the discovery of the body is.
I was also a fan of L&O SVU but there is a lot of violence, more than what you would think would be permissible on network TV. There is a scene where the detectives walk in midway as a spouse being stabbed to death by her partner. Had to have a think about continuing with the show after that.
It's definitely not just you - I agree completely that "modern" shows have gone too far into the gratuitous violence and sex in their content. It's not because of the story either, it's just "let's make this as explicit as we can".
Part of this is due to lack of standards of where the content is appearing (network TV used to have more red lines one couldn't cross, cable and others don't), but also because of the increased volume of content, shock imagery is certainly effective in pulling people in.
Another commenter said it's normal because they were desensitised due to video games and so on, but I don't think that's the case. There's a huge difference between the cartoon violence of something like GTA5 or even obviously synthetic shooters, and the graphic gory detail that show runners seem to want to include now.
That being said, one of the most recent Mortal Kombat ones though really went out of their way to make it graphic - I enjoyed the originals back in the 90s, but this was too much for me so I switched it off.
We very heavily censor media in our household. Screen time is extremely limited, and even then only a filtered set of content. It's necessary as the natural content guardrails that were present when I was a kid are completely gone now.
On a related note: we've been watching some Hercule Poirot mysteries recently - all movies, some were made for TV in the 80s, and even though they are murder mysteries, they handle it really well with no graphic gore or anything. If you're looking for something for this weekend!
I'm the same way. But I ended up being nearby other people watching it that I had a lot of the really gory scenes spoiled for me. Then when I finally got dragged into watching it I knew what was coming and it didn't end up being too much to overcome
Yeah, me too. There are lots of great shows I had to stop watching because of this. Breaking Bad, Dexter. I mean, I guess they did okay on those shows without my contribution, but I feel like they could have been just as powerful without as much blood.
You might like publicly broadcast crime-centric kdramas, unlike Squid Game most do not ever show a bladed weapon (the blade is blurred out except in historical shows where the swords and knives are shown) although there is still gunplay.
It likely depends on what you're accustomed to seeing. Lots of people, myself included, grew up on absurdly over the top violence in video games and some stylistic movies (terentino films for ex) with desensitization as a result, in much the same way how some people are extremely triggered by certain phonetic combinations that correspond to current culturally relevant profanities.
If anything too much gore placed too gratuitously can actually provoke the wrong response and unintentional hilarity since we known it's a complete fiction.
We evolved under violent rather conditions. Think of life on the savannah, or more recently, hunter gatherers throttling one another to steal resources. Or barbarian life.
It's only now that we get to live in comfy little bubbles. They're still occasionally punctuated by moments of the grim truth.
American TV tends to afraid of a lot of taboos. I am Norwegian and it is always interesting to see American remakes of Nordic movies and shows. They change anything which touches on taboo subjects. There is a great Swedish vampire movie which deals with quite a number of disturbing topics in relation to sexuality, abuse etc. The American remake did everything to avoid that any of the darker undercurrents and subjects became visible.
When American movies deal with sex it is always made into something tantalizing. Something to sell and excite. American media quickly sweep under the rug anything unpleasant.
Broadcasters invest a lot of resources into a single production that they'll prize for a year or to, or even a decade if it's a hit - but as they've got a TV audience sized in the multiples-of-hundreds-of-millions-of-people that's also socially/politically/culturally polarized they won't take many chances with controversial material.
If you ignore the (largely bland, invariably unoriginal) "mass-market" media in the US and look at smaller, local and independent broadcast media in the US (back when local TV stations were a thing) you'll see more... interesting material, but the production values aren't there which makes it harder to watch.
Sometimes. Sometimes they're so progressive that it ruins the narrative and dramatic tension. At this point it ends up being a surprise when the terrorists aren't really a secret conspiracy run by a capitalist defense contractor or rogue domestic spy agency of some sort.
And it's always the rich widow and never the creepy janitor who ends up being the murderer. Can't "punch down"!
> Sometimes they're so progressive that it ruins the narrative and dramatic tension. At this point it ends up being a surprise when the terrorists aren't really a secret conspiracy run by a capitalist defense contractor or rogue domestic spy agency of some sort.
This is a great example of being too politically correct and playing it safe.
It's such an uninspired version of Running Man/Battle Royale/Hunger Games/Hostile/Movie of your Choice from the Dystopian "Rich people watch poor people do bad stuff for their entertainment" genre.
IDK, I hate capitalism as much as anyone on this site, but UGH what a boring take.
Honestly, "You" is a much better satire on the platform right now.
The magic is in the acting around the premise, not the social commentary. It's head and shoulders above most other television right now in that regard.
There are short summaries on YouTube you can watch. I watched one and it seemed quite good. It was about 15 minutes and now I can at least understand references to it.
It’s starts out pretty brutal with mass death scenes but then about half way it pivots to being more emotionally disturbing with a focus on what the background story is and who is behind it.
The second episode is a little bit slow, a breather to show you more about their lives without a bunch of cheesy flashbacks, but yes it does pick up again after that.
I hardly watch anything so I am still on the fence. I guess I might check out the short summaries first just to get cultural references. I skipped most series like Breaking Bad and don't feel amiss at all.
I'm about to cancel my Netflix (Canada) I find myself going to it scrolling around and leaving finding nothing interesting. On top of that like most streaming services shows I like take nearly 2 years for the next episode to be made. And it's only eight shows for a "season". By that time I've lost interest in any of the shows.
I have been watching more Amazon Prime lately. It seems to have older shows that I find more interesting plus some new ones I like too, but the same thing of 18 to 24 months for season 2 of eight shows. But this paying to rent inside a streaming service you are already paying for is incredibly stupid.
Disney+ was so easy, I accidentally signed up it! For one month at $1.99 then jumps to $11.99. Worth it I watched Free Guy which Amazon wanted $25 to rent while paying for Amazon Prime already. now I'm going through all the Star Wars and Marvel movies and shows.
I tried to sign up for Apple TV holy what a mess. I have an Apple ID, I had a Mac but it died. Try to sign into my AppleID and my password is rejected. Try to recover my password "check your Mac" no, it died. Use your new Apple device, nope. Use someone's iPhone, no again. Make a new apple ID, nope my gmail is already in use. Recover? Text is sent (Samsung phone) but the recovery page kicked me off when I read the text. Finally got it to work and was told 7 days to recover. Got an email and was told 14 it's days to recover my AppleID password. So Nov 27 I may make some progress.
> And it's only eight shows for a "season". By that time I've lost interest in any of the shows.
That's a good thing, tbh.
Too many good show concepts get ruined by the legacy (and very outmoded) American TV syndication business-model which forces producers to make 20+ episodes per year which really compromises the quality of a show. Netflix's business model was/is fantastic for original showrunners because if they want to make a miniseries or 8-10 episode season then that's more than fine with Netflix, because the better the overall quality the more people will be willing to pay for Netflix (also, why Netflix is fine with showing ample non-US content licensed from other countries' media industries which would never get TV air-time in the US because they (rightfully) don't want to compromise their shows by padding them out to 20+ episodes a year.
That said, I stopped watching Netflix like... 4-5 years ago and I'm still paying for it, argh.
There is so little quality on Netflix it's laughable. Anything that gets a slight following has a mediocre at best season 2 followed by 2-4 seasons of garbage. Very little is critically watched on the network because an entire 8-12 hour season is dumped on one day.
I’m a nightmare customer for streaming services. I rotate my subscriptions to watch just what I want, then churn. I’m a Netflix customer for max 2-3 months each year to catch up on the latest installments of my favorite shows.
I do exactly this - I budget for 2 simultaneous streaming subs and then just cancel one and resub another when I get bored or want to watch something on a diff service.
Tangentially, I still prefer Netflix solely based on viewing experience for web and mobile. The other services all have super awkward tradeoffs or issues.
I wish there was a way to have access to all streaming services but only pay a micro-transaction for the shows you want to watch. An a-la-carte video streaming service.
I’m considering canceling my Netflix as well. There’s a ton of stuff but I find most of it unappealing. Much of the stuff I had previously put in my watch list has over time disappeared from their catalog. I think on average I find about one thing a month to watch there.
I’ve also been going to Prime to watch and often even rent movies. There definitely seems to be a more stuff from other decades there.
On the whole, there’s such choice paralysis with all the streaming services I have now that I waste a ton of time just bouncing around looking for something to watch.
> I'm about to cancel my Netflix (Canada) I find myself going to it scrolling around and leaving finding nothing interesting.
Same, except I don't pay for Netflix, my partner does.
Anytime I have a moment of weakness and try browsing Netflix I end up wasting 20 minutes and feeling worse than before. Frustrated, drained, and annoyed.
The worst part of it is I strongly suspect they do have some content I would like to watch somewhere in there. They just make it impossible to find.
Considering how big of a deal it was to get Seinfeld onto the platform, it's interesting to see it hasn't broken the top 10 lists on any week. Maybe long tail viewing habits tell a different story.
This is tangential, but I tried watching it with a girlfriend relatively recently and found that I couldn't comfortably watch it with her. The first episode alone has all these not-so-subtle sexist jokes. I used to watch it a lot when I was younger, but I guess I just didn't notice back then. Certainly there are parts of the show that are endearing, but I just wasn't comfortable watching it casually with company and decided to change the show.
Just to confirm I read it right. You found that you couldn't comfortably watch Seinfeld with your girlfriend? Was that because she was uncomfortable watching it which made you uncomfortable too or you assumed that she would be offended and that's why it was uncomfortable to you?
She was ostensibly fine with it, but it made me feel weird. It felt like I was endorsing the kinds of thought patterns represented. I knew she wouldn't be offended per se, but I didn't want her to get the wrong impression of me, and I also don't want to be a person who acts like that's normal for my own sake. There are 100% appropriate contexts to watch that and know that it's antiquated and that nobody present is endorsing it, but I had put it on intentionally because I wanted something light, and at that point it started getting too stressful.
I had a similar feeling when we recently started watching The Office (US version) with my girlfriend. Lots of cringy sexist jokes in the beginning. I know they're made by the "bad" guys, and are a sign of their "badness", not something celebrated, but it's still pretty cringy. We're still binging it though, it wasn't a deal breaker.
Sure, "clean" as in doesn't do toilet/gross-out/sex humour, but a lot of his observational bits are "have you ever noticed how women are different from men in this way?"-type comparisons.
I can see how someone might find that kind of material sexist, especially if they've only encountered a few episodes where it seems like he's basically saying women are worse than men.
Personally, I don't have a problem with it because over lots and lots of episodes, whether he's punching down at men or women balances out. I'm not sure if the writers made a conscious choice to make it that way after maybe some initial criticism as I never followed the show when it was on air originally.
Good comedy was always uncomfortable. Saying something everyone was thinking but may be taboo. Comedy shines a light on a dark truth. Being uncomfortable isn't acceptable in 2021.
Good comedy has to be funny— that’s all good comedy has to do. It’s not that deep. If it makes you uncomfortable that’s a side thing, but first and foremost good comedy is funny. I read the post as saying that the jokes weren’t funny anymore in the context of why in-jokes with my pals aren’t funny to a total stranger.
This is something I think a lot of people fail to understand about comedy: As long as it's funny, it's good. That's it. Doesn't matter how offensive, dirty, clean, esoteric, or even "obvious" the joke is. As long as it's funny, it's a good joke.
I think a lot of big name comics think they're "owed" the laughs, and some people think that their personal taste is the only comedy. It's all subjective, but if you get the laugh, that's the only thing that matters in comedy.
I enjoy watching Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" to really understand what makes a comic, and you pretty much described what they all say. They just are trying to get a laugh 24x7. They all have different styles but the goal is the same. It really made me appreciate different types of comedians and that most of the successful ones really have a love for their craft.
Not true. Ricky Gervais makes the case that making animal jokes (e.g. where you tell a funny story, but the characters are animals having people-like problems) is too easy and so doesn't count as much.
(Actually, I'm not sure he said this on Comedians in Cars, or in a different show)
Maybe comedians are people too and have varied points of view on comedy gasp
I'm sorry to sound antagonistic, but that is a deeply lazy take.
It is so incredibly disrespectful of your fellow human to assume that "uncomfortable = illegitimate" by default, which is absolutely what your comment does.
Seinfeld absolutely has a lot of pretty blatantly sexist humor that would, sure, not be acceptable on TV today, but was also shitty, then. We just didn't do a particularly job of caring about it.
> Being uncomfortable isn't acceptable in 2021.
Says who? Watch Squid Game. Watch Parasite. Watch... I dunno, Big Mouth. These are just random things that come to mind, but they're huge, mainstream pieces of media that are actively challenging to watch and use that uncomfortable feeling to an end, without punching down.
At what point did you feel uncomfortable during squid game or parasite? His relative was selfish and some mild gore. Has a thriller / horror pace. But I never felt uncomfortable or questioned my humanity or my choices.
If those are the examples you have to offer you make my point stronger. Where is the 2021 crying game?
Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones made people uncomfortable in 2021. Have you seen it, most popular comedy standup special on netflix? Do you consider it as shitty of Seinfeld?
Speaking of comedy: the only people to whom being uncomfortable isn't acceptable in 2021 is...cis het white men.
There's a difference between feeling uncomfortable because someone is being misogynistic & feeling uncomfortable because of the realisation that--regardless of specifics of personal situation--anyone in that demographic benefits from systems of oppression.
You're reading this in part because not everyone in your life told you that you should seek an interest outside of technology & entrepreneurship to which you would be "better suited".
Disclaimer: Have stood on a stage with a microphone and made a paying audience laugh.
Used to watch re-runs of it all the time but I tried re-watching it on Netflix and found it really sticks out how almost every major character on the show is white, and any time a non-white character appears they really ramp up their ethnic characteristics to an uncomfortable degree.
Particularly an episode where Jerry inadvertently makes several racist remarks in front of a Native American character while the laugh track is going nuts just left me speechless.
You have to measure it with the standards of that time, but this kind of obliviousness to any kind of ethnic character is just off-putting now.
I don't know, maybe it's an American thing, but to a person from Europe this reads like an attempt at parody. I cannot believe one can watch Seinfeld (likely one of the most benign tv shows there are) and somehow find it problematic.
I think we really reached a point when a big part of American culture (especially the constant racialization of everything) is not understandable to an average person from another country.
No it's definitely not an 'American' thing, in the broader sense- it is the most popular show of all time, I believe. I'm with you, I love Seinfeld but consider it very milquetoast- the comedy is centered around mundane daily events, just like Curb, and their over-the-top reactions, it shied away from anything remotely controversial. Various social norms have changed since the 90s, of course, so apparently that can offend people (?!), but there's no accounting for taste, as they say.
I only saw periodic episodes as a kid (had no TV), but watching it now, the physical comedy really stands out to me- a genre I've never been into, but Kramer, Elaine and George are great at it.
To your point about the show, watch the clip yourself [0] and see how you feel. To me, this plays in pretty bad taste.
I understand that this episode was made 28 years ago and was probably fairly on par with attitudes at the time, but just like our attitudes to race have changed so has my attitude to comedy. Watching this today I react with cringe rather than laughing anywhere near as hard as the laugh track seems to imply I should be.
I'm also not singling out one particular episode, there are other examples of this. Another episode featuring a Pakistani-American character called "Babhu" also plays poorly to me today [1].
If you can watch these clips and think they're still benign then that's ok, we'll just have to agree to disagree, but I don't think you can watch them and still find it incomprehensible why someone might have an issue with them.
Wow you really missed the joke. The Indian joke is making fun of Jerry and his tone deafness. The girl that he’s interested in is a Native American and he’s making a fool of himself when he gave Elaine the “cigar store Indian” thinking he was going to get points in her mind
I'm not sure what from my comment makes you feel I don't understand this is the premise of the episode?
My criticism would be that a scene where the main character of a show makes a series of demeaning remarks about someone's race to the point where they are so offended that they leave the apartment isn't funny. The fact that Jerry is trying to get laid and blows his chances is beside the point.
The Winona character is humiliated and the episode gives this no weight at all. The only consequences for Jerry and Kramer's racism is that Jerry doesn't get into a relationship with Winona.
Looking back on this from 2021, it hasn't aged well for me.
I don't think that nuance is lost on anyone. But does it succeed? That's debatable. After all, in order to make the point that "making fun of native Americans is bad", the show still ends up making fun of native Americans. Making fun of native Americans might be "bad," but hey it's hilarious, just another one of Jerry's silly hijinks, so how bad could it really be?
Additionally Winona comes off as an oversensitive snowflake when she accuses Jerry of lowkey calling her an "Indian giver." In other words, maybe Jerry's a little racist, and that's wrong and silly, but being sensitive about it is equally wrong and silly, is the message. Fortunately Winona breaks it off and the show can go back to forgetting Native Americans exist as anything but a foil to Jerry's gang.
Furthermore, because real-life Jerry is so "brave" as to skewer character-Jerry's racism, real-life Jerry gets to congratulate himself for being woke.
To sum up, Jerry Seinfeld scores points for himself at the expense of native Americans, is one way to interpret what happened.
Seinfeld himself has conceded that the episode didn't age well, so whether or not you agree with parent poster, it's not like he's really being so "odd" and out-there in his reasoning.
> the show still ends up making fun of native Americans.
I disagree that it does.
Also in the link you've provided Seinfeld only says "You could never do that today". You've interpreted that as him conceding that the episode didn't age well. That's a stretch. (To be fair, the title of the article suggests he's admitting it's offensive but there doesn't seem to be anything to back that up).
This is what happens when large portions of a demographic are terminally online and their only hobby is doomscrolling on Twitter looking for something to get outraged about.
I find I can still enjoy it, in the context of when it was made. It does not seem mean spirited, and I am not white. I grew up with it though, so it could be my frame of reference allows for it.
tbh I personally think in that episode Jerry Seinfeld illustrated quite well the awkwardness some people feel when discussing race and it was quite ahead of its time.
On one hand he's guilty of everyday racism (and doesn't even notice it) and on the other he tries to be ridiculously cautious to the point of paternalism (avoiding saying "dinner reservations" to a native American).
I'm only speculating but almost surely it doesnt need to crack top 10 to be a success. On regular TV Seinfeld reruns have been money makers for years though on any given week they of course have paltry ratings compared to new stuff.
But what was kind of movie was it? The trailer made it seem like a heist movie + zombie flick. Instead there were far-too-long emotional back story elements to flesh out the father-daughter relationship.
Most people don't look at reviews before watching something, especially on netflix, and the movie seems to tick a lot of boxes for a lot of people. Then they watch it.
I wanted to like it, but it was just so unlikeable. Half of that for me was Zach Snyder's cinematography (which he did himself).
I watched the prequel first, Army of Thieves, which was actually pretty good.
I watched Army of Dead for just the one lock picking character, hoping he had a bigger role, and was sorely disappointed that I wasted as much time as I did.
I was on shrooms for the first movie, that might have biased my reception of it, but it was at least better than the second.
I thought Army of Thieves removed what I enjoy about heist movies (clever puzzle solving, regardless of how unrealistic it can get) and instead replaced it with random acts of CGI-generated safe mechanics animation. Was well made but ultimately unsatisfying.
Setting expectations? I have low expectations for most action films, so I always tend to enjoy them more. I suppose watching the Matrix sequels without knowing the first film even existed, might have meant more people enjoyed it, but knowing the first film existed, everyone had high expectations for the sequels.
Apropos of nothing - saw "The Irishman" on there, which I confused with the "The Foreigner" - that is worth a watch. I'd say it has Jackie Chan's best English language performance. FWIW the original book is "The Chinaman" by Stephen Leather which is a good pulpy read.
I think for a lot of people they put on movies in the background to occasionally engage with as they go about other tasks.
Myself and my friend circle lean more towards film snobbery than mass market interests. It's not a critical masterpiece that's for sure. But it is fun to watch mass market movies like this and riff on them.
The big news here is not only the publicly available top 10, (only available while logged-in before, and re-shared by scrapers). It's also the worldwide weekly viewing hours, a metric tailored for Netflix investors (an equivalent to the social networks' "engagement"). And the fact that you can download all the data directly on the website in Excel or TSV format without any scraping or Netflix account.
I have heard of some of these but watched none of them. I do watch a lot of media (hours per day if you believe my devices’ records) but it’s all documentaries, public television and various “maker” YouTube videos. I tried recently to watch a few favorite TV shows from a few years ago and they didn’t hold my attention at all. I’m in my mid 40s. Is this an age thing or a nerd thing?
It's a you thing. Plenty of tech nerds watch Netflix shows, we're not a separate species.
I'm 27 and don't care to watch new TV shows, whether it's prestige or Netflix thing-of-the-month shows. I prefer films and reading. I don't feel proud for not watching them though. It's just media consumption at the end of the day.
Well half of my netflix suggestions in the US for the past 2 years have been 50% subtitled korean or chinese dramas. I haven't watched any kdramas but they always get promoted to me under the weekly top 10 section.
kind of? they are syndicating new international content that wouldn't have been syndicated at all, and they are doing a pretty decent job of getting some cult classics out to a broader audience, for example I've seen many Cowboy Bebop stickers and shirts on in the last few months, and their new live action hasn't come out yet (or just did), but they had the anime for a while.
I would not say they are covering niches very well, which I'm fine with. Not in an elitist sense, but in a "most of it is trash and Netflix's recommendation engine is nightmarish" sense. So I wouldn't want to accidentally click on something and mess up my whole recommendations for one-country's bottom barrel media.
Why does Netflix publish lists like these, but make it so hard to find objective ratings of their content? All I can see in their interface is lists of "recommended" and "trending" content, and a percentage rating of how similar things are to content I've already watched. I'm tired of having to watch a half hour of everything only to find out that it's a B-movie.
Netflix's model is shoving content down the user's throat, not providing them good content¹. And they're madly successful at that: most the movies on their top list are arguably garbage, but they're up there because they're the most pushed to the users.
I'm always on the border to close my Netflix account precisely because of that - a side effect of the Netflix interface is that it makes it hard to manage content; I'm staying just because I need to learn a new language.
¹=I don't imply that there is no good content at all.
Any recommendations for services that provide good content? In Hungary, we have a few which function more like libraries. You can find virtually any Hungarian film and watch it easily. But they're mostly limited to Hungarian content.
In the past, where I had no language requirement, I used to download movies illegally, then purchasing the ones I liked/wanted to support. I can't obviously suggest this officially :)
I think you've just answered your own question, the objective ratings would be generally poor.
I say this accepting that some Netflix content is really good and, overall, the cost per month is reasonable value - especially considering I sometimes pay more for one single series via Prime.
obvious next step is to make the list clickable so you can click on it & start watching the show (if you are logged in)
btw, are all shows watchable in all countries or is there country-specific licenses ?
There's country specific license. Netflix is a frequently advertised feature of many mainstream VPN's, people will tunnel into a server in a certain country to access geo-locked content.
But to my knowledge this may not always work anymore, Netflix is supposedly cracking down on it.
There is a lot of awful (subjective, but you know what I'm getting at) stuff which can seem inexplicably popular because the kind of people who watch it don't write home and tell anyone.
Sometimes you accidentally watch such movies. I watched a Bruce Willis movie on Netflix a few weeks ago without checking IMDB first thinking that it could be semi-decent because the cast was ok. It turned out to be a disaster and I later found out that the IMDB score was something like 2/10.
I wonder if perhaps Netflix's data isn't quite as clean as they hope?
A bot clicking play a million times I'd imagine could easily bring stuff to the top of these charts if the data collection and aggregation wasn't built with that in mind.
They aren't counting clicks, they are counting hours watched, and a subscriber only gets so many simultaneous views. The bot would have to hold the data connection open for a million hours.
Now, I don't know the details of how long the viewer has to watch a show before it counts as a view. But people stopping early is treated as a downvote, if I understand correctly.
I think the closest that comes to actually knowing what's probably being watched across all media in aggregate, would be TorrentFreak's Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week list[1].
But even that is really not completely accurate because not everybody that pirates necessarily consume what they pirate. Some just hoard for hoarding's sake.
Honestly I'd rather have the inverse - Top 10 least watched TV and films. I don't want to see what everybody else has already seen.
I want to find the less watched rare stuff, quicker.
They need fixed position left/right arrows so that we can keep focus on the content rather than moving the cursor to point it right. As of now based on the size of date field, the arrows shift.
This is a good example of the principle that popularity is not necessarily an accurate indicator for quality.
Many of these films are low quality. They will not be winning any awards.
Now consider that the "tech" industry is, with few exceptions, 100%-focused on popularity as a measure of relevance. If something is not popular it is not going to attract interest from advertisers or investors and thus, to the "tech" company intermediary website/app, it is of little utility.
I wonder how much this changes when normalized by hours. What I mean is that it's ranked by hours viewed, but some movies are a lot longer than others for example.
To be fair for Netflix that's not important. What's important is that a 3h movie kept you in front of them for 3h. That's why they measure success in viewing hours instead of viewing count.
Yes, I know it's not important to Netflix and it's why the report total hours. But it's important to the rest of the industry, which is why I think it would be interesting. And someone on the outside can figure it out, because with the total hours shown on this page, they can normalize it themselves since the run times of each show are public.
I think for a well-made show, batch/traditional weekly release works very well since it builds up hype and keeps people invested.
For a bad show where you want to get who you can to just binge through, the Netflix method of dumping all content and making it available works better for keeping you interested.
Arcane seems to go in the middle and each episode ends pretty well, but also the first two sets of 3 episodes do feel like mini-movies to me. Each ends at a particularly compelling point and keeps you looking ahead.
I hope Studio Fortiche and Riot Games keep it up in future stories because I have really enjoyed Arcane so far!!
I've been really impressed with Arcane. Despite the silly Imagine Dragons cameo just prior, the fight scene between Vi and Sevika in episode 5 was incredible. I had to watch it again because the movements and punches looked motion captured and very well choreographed.
> Figuring out how best to measure success in streaming is hard, and there’s no one perfect metric. Traditional measures like box office or share of audience (which was designed to help advertisers understand success on linear TV) aren’t relevant to most streamers, including Netflix. Having looked at the different options, we believe engagement as measured by hours viewed is a strong indicator of a title’s popularity, as well as overall member satisfaction, which is important for retention in subscription services. In addition, hours viewed mirrors the way third parties measure popularity, encompasses rewatch (a strong sign of member joy) and can be consistently measured across different companies.
Years ago, Netflix got a lot of flak for using "users who saw atleast 5 minutes of a series" as an indication people watched it. Quantifying video performance based on watch time has become more industry standard (especially on social media which loves autoplaying videos) as it accounts for retention.
Interesting, I’d have said TV shows have an advantage in this metric. (How many top shows have less than two hours worth of episodes?) On the surface I think the charts show this, as only the most popular English movies are over ~15M hours but virtually all of the TV shows are.
Either way, since TV and Films aren’t listed together I’m not sure either one is “penalized” really.
It seems like hours watched for a subscription service seems useless, there are no ads to catch eyeballs why care how many hours watched if the person is still paying for it? It seems like the perfect netflix user would use the service infrequently but still pay for it.
seems like a peek into a potential strategy to introduce advertising. Rather than price increases playing ads between streams or "paused" states may be the next monetization play
The big questions I have are: why were they so secretive about this before, and why are they opening up now?
Perhaps for the latter, they reason that the leaks kept the employee protest in the news more than it would have otherwise, and by proactively sharing some basic metrics there is less ammunition for leakers.
> Due to the film's $200 million production budget and Netflix's global film chief Scott Stuber saying that the company's "big-budget tentpole films [need] to draw an audience of more than 70 million viewers within the first 28 days of availability," The New York Observer estimated Red Notice would need to total around 200 million hours (about 83 million household viewers) to be deemed a success
I guess by this definition, it can be deemed a success.